THE SPIDER AND THE APHIDS

I was a bit disappointed when I got up this morning to find the tiny golden spider, which I have named Arry Arachnid, had left its web but as soon as the sun came out nice and bright, Arry came out too.  I guess she's a late riser.  Turns out that Arry (now deemed short for Ariadne), as far as I can ascertain it, is an Araneus diadematus spider and is not male but female.  Apparently females hang upside down on their webs and can reach a size of 15mm.  At the moment, she is about 1mm but the way she eats...  She must have needed a hearty breakfast this morning because when I discovered that there were aphids sucking the life out of my sweet peas, well, Arry got breakfast served in web.  She ate two green aphids before I had time to say 'would you like coffee with that?' and then a black fly made the mistake of flying her way.  





Golden spider (Arry Arachnid) having breakfast while hanging upside down

After eating two greenflies, cocooning another, Arry leapt upon the black one while trying to hang on to yet another greenfly.  Greenflies abound in my garden right now but there'll be a lot less of them, I'm sure, before she's done with them. 

Golden spider, Araneus diadematus with a blackfly just behind the greenfly.  Greedy or what?

The speed at which the spider could restrict the greenfly within its silk was astounding.  I am speaking of two or three seconds time it took for Arry to go from the centre of her web, to the greenfly higher up on the web to cocoon it, and then back to the centre.  I kid you not. 



This is a compilation of the first videos I have ever taken with my new Canon EOS 6D.  The quality is poor but remember that Arry is only 1cm across, it was a breezy day, and she was very much on the move.  She eats more than my Ragdoll cat, Alfie!  You can see here how fast she moves in the video.  Most of the time she is upside down, feeding her face. 

These are the sweet pea flowers under attack from aphids.

Sweet Peas attacked by green aphids



Araneus diadematus